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Money is the Root of all Evil?

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Ant:
"So you think money is the root of all evil?  Have you ever asked what is the root of all money?  Money is a tool of exchange, which can't exist unless there are goods produced and men able to produce them.  Money is the material shape of the principle that men who wish to deal with one another must deal by trade and give value for value.  Money is not the tool of the moochers, who claim your product by tears, or of the looters, who take it from you by force.  Money is made possible only by men who produce.  Is this what you consider evil?

"When you accept money in payment for your effort, you do so only on the conviction that you will exchange it for the product of the effort of others.  It is not the moochers or the looters who give value to money.  Not an ocean of tears nor all the guns in the world can transform those peices of paper in your wallet into bread you will need to survive tommorrow.  Those peices of paper, which should have been gold, are a token of honor - your claim upon the energy of the men who produce.  Your wallet is your statement of hope that somewhere in the world around you there are men who will not default on that moral principle which is the root of money.  Is this what you consider evil?"

"you say money is made by the strong at the expense of the weak?  What strength do you mean? It is not strength of guns or muscles.  Wealth is the product of man's capacity to think.  Then is money made by the man who invents a motor at the expense of those who did not invent it?  Is money made by the intelligent at the expense of the fools?  By the able at the expense of the lazy? Money is MADE - before it can be looted or mooched - made by the effot of every honest man, each to the extent of his ability.  An honest man is one who knows that he can't consume more than he can produce."

"To trade means by means of money is the code of men of good will.  Money rests on the axiom that every man is the owner of his mind and his effort.  Money allows no power to prescrive the value of your effort except the voluntary choice of the man who is wiling to trade you his effort in return.  Money permits you to abtain for your goods and your labor that which they are worth to the men who buy them, but no more.  Money permits no deals except those to mutual benefit by the unforced judgement of the traders.  Money demands of you the recognition that men must work for their own benefit, not for their own injury, for their gain, not their loss - the recognition that they are not beasts of burden, born to carry the weight of your misery - that you must offer them value, not wounds - that the common bond among men is not the exchange of sufffering, but the exchange of goods.  Money demands that you sell, not your weakness to men's stupidity, but yout talent to their reason; it demands that you buy, not the shoddiest they offer, but the best that your money can find.  And when men live by trade-with reason, not force, as their final arbiter 0 it is the best product that wins, the best performance, the man of best judgement and highest ability - and the degree of a man's productiveness is the degree of his reward.  This is the code of existence whose tool and symbol is money.  Is this what you consider evil?"

"But money is not only a tool.  It will take you wherever you wish, but it will not replace you as the driver. It will give you the means for the satisfaction of your desires, but it will not provide you with desires.  Money is the scourge of the men who attempt to reverse the law of casuality - the men who seek to replace the mind by seizing the products of the mind."

"Money will not buy intelligence for the fool, or admiration for the coward, or respect for the incompetant.  The man who attempts to purchase the brains of his superiors to serve him, with his money relpacing his judgement, ends up becoming the victim of his inferiors.  The men of intelligence desert him, but the cheats and the frauds come flocking to him, drawn by a law which he has not discovered: that no man may be smaller than his money."

-Quotation taken from the character of Francisco D'Anconia in Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged

Trauma-san:
Yeah, I don't think money is the root of all evil, either.  It's just another thing people abuse.  I do think evil people are generally characterised by having a ton of money, even though of course there's exceptions.  Jesus never said money was the root of evil, but he did say it was easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than it was for a rich man to get into heaven.  I think that's a good way of looking at it, not all rich people are bad but a lot are.  

Woodrow:
Who is John Galt?  ;)

Ant:
lol

Murrow:
Religon is the root of all evil.

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